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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I rise today to speak about the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, about to come before us.

First, let me say this bill is aptly named in recognition of nearly three decades of service in the Senate of our colleague Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma. I count him as a friend, and I wish him the very best in his future endeavors.

I am grateful to him, Chairman Jack Reed from Rhode Island, and their staff for working to produce this bill.

This is the 62nd year that Congress has reached a bipartisan, bicameral agreement to produce this Defense authorization bill. It is about the only thing which you can count on with regularity every year, and I commend Senator Reed and Senator Inhofe for maintaining that tradition and maintaining our commitment to the men and women in uniform and the defense of the United States.

This fiscal year 2023 Defense authorization bill has a top line of nearly $858 billion for defense and a deserved 4.6-percent pay raise for our troops--that is the largest increase in 20 years--to help military families deal with inflation.

The bill also supports employment opportunities for military spouses, their kids, and improved military housing and childcare.

It ensures that the United States can defend effectively against threats from China, North Korea, or any other nation foolish enough to challenge.

And it boosts military aid to Ukraine, which is at the frontline of democracy, as defense against the Russian thug's brutal and illegal war.

The bill invests important and innovative capabilities and technologies to improve the safety of military tactical vehicles and discover PFAS-free alternatives to firefighting.

And it includes several provisions that I requested with Senator Duckworth, from protecting Scott Air Force Base--one of our premier Air Force bases--from divestment to strengthening security cooperation with our Baltic allies, to expanding Federal mental health services after FEMA emergency declarations.

I am pleased the bill also includes bipartisan provisions from the Judiciary Committee to improve the security of Federal judges and strengthen protection for sexual assault survivors.

You wonder, What is that doing in this bill?

This bill is the vehicle for many good things to happen, and the bills that I have just referenced were bipartisan bills coming out of committee which we have hitched a ride on this bill to deliver.

At the same time, I am troubled by several provisions in the text of the bill.

First, this bill would lift the Pentagon's policy of requiring servicemembers in the military to receive COVID-19 vaccines. This is an extremely alarming and even dangerous decision.

Mandatory vaccinations for the U.S. military are not new. They date back to the earliest days before we were a nation, when George Washington ordered small pox inoculations for troops in the Continental Army.

The Pentagon currently requires several vaccines for military members, and appropriate exemptions already exist for medical and religious purposes.

So many troops serve around the world in extreme conditions and in close quarters for extended periods of time by assignment, making any risk of infectious disease such as COVID all the more threatening and troubling.

And the lingering damage of long COVID--and don't discount it. There are Members of the Senate who are privately and quietly battling with this issue--including respiratory, heart, neurological, and autoimmune conditions. This underscores the importance of our servicemembers being vaccinated.

Thankfully--thankfully--more than 97 percent of all Department of Defense employees have been fully vaccinated, and more than 99 percent of Active-Duty servicemembers have had at least one dose.

But the repeal of this mandate at the insistence of Republican Members of the House is a dangerous, disturbing insertion of politics into an important public health and national security matter.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, whom I greatly respect, has made it clear that he opposes this provision, as do I.

In addition, the final bill extends for another year unnecessary restrictions on transferring detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo. Did you think Guantanamo was gone and closed? No, it isn't.

Included in this bill is a complete ban of transfer of any of these detainees to the mainland of the United States for any purpose whatsoever for any period of time.

This ban includes even transfers to the United States for prosecution in a Federal court or necessary medical care.

This puts our medical professionals in a terrible, untenable, unprofessional position of having to provide medical care that cannot be safely provided on that naval base, Guantanamo.

That endangers the lives of their patients, when we mandate it in this bill.

I have come to this floor to advocate for the closure of Guantanamo for years. It saddens me that for more than two decades, the legacy of torture and indefinite detention has continued to betray our values as a nation and the rule of law. This detention facility was deliberately created to serve as a legal black hole where detainees could be held incommunicado, beyond the reach of law, and even subjected to torture. There is still, all of these years later, no due process for the prisoners at Guantanamo and no justice for the families of the thousands of people who died on 9/11.

We held a hearing on Guantanamo, and one of the family members of the survivors of that terrible 9/11 occurrence came and said to us: Finally get it over with. Close this facility. Try these individuals if you have a charge against them; if not, put an end to it.

Since that prison opened in Guantanamo, hundreds of detainees have come and gone. Today, there are 35 individuals at an unjustified and embarrassing cost of $550 million per year to keep the facility open. Quick math--we are spending $15 million a year for each of these detainees while there are ample vacancies in our Federal prisons. Why?

The vast majority of the men who remain indefinitely detained have never--never--been charged with any crime and have been unanimously approved for transfer by defense and intelligence agencies, and American taxpayers pay $15 million a year for each of them to stay at Guantanamo. They languish at Guantanamo for no justifiable reason, contrary to any notion of due process or rule of law.

I filed an amendment to this bill that I am referring to earlier this fall to close this prison at Guantanamo once and for all. Put it behind us. I am disappointed that it wasn't taken up and that the final bill doesn't address it.

The Senate, again, did not have a regular floor process for this bill, which would have allowed debate and amendments. That is what the Senate used to do routinely. Now, it hardly ever happens in this body.

Ultimately, I will vote for this bill even with my objections I have stated, but I want the record to be clear: The Defense Authorization Act has not been bogged down by ``liberal nonsense,'' as the Senate minority leader stated last week on the floor of the Senate. The reality is, this bill authorizes nearly $75 billion more for the national defense compared to the last fiscal year--a significant increase and critical for our Nation's defense and our troops--but I hope it will be matched in an omnibus by nondefense spending to keep parity as well.

We must finalize and pass an omnibus bill without delay to keep our Federal Government functioning.

I want to note one top priority that should have been included in this bill and should be included now in the omnibus spending bill. The bipartisan Justice for Victims of War Crimes Act is cosponsored by Republican Senator Chuck Grassley and myself. We introduced it, and several of our colleagues joined us.

Most Americans would be shocked to learn that the laws of the United States of America do not allow us to prosecute foreign war criminals who are roaming free right here in the United States--hard to believe.

As that unspeakable atrocity continues in Ukraine, we must not allow those who are murdering and torturing the people of Ukraine to come and reside in the United States with impunity, period. We must close this gap in our laws and ensure that foreign nationals here on our soil can be prosecuted for war crimes. America must send a message to the Vladimir Putins of the world that their henchmen will find no safe haven here.

I look forward to finally getting to this critical bill as soon as possible.

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